Conversations with Architects & Alternative Uses for Drafting Pencils

I hate meeting architects. I have hated meeting architects for years. It’s a shame, because I used to love speaking to them.

As soon as an architect hears that I work in technology, I have to hear how much they hate that my industry has stolen their name: “Software Architect, Systems Architect, Information Architect… I can’t look for jobs anymore because they are all tech jobs. To be a *real* architect you need a license… you need this… you need that.”

As a user experience designer for web connected stuff, I find the scale and process that architects of physical buildings undergo incredibly interesting. If given the opportunity I could talk to them for hours about the similarities and differences of our work, because they really are interrelated. And in the not-so-distant future, they will overlap more.

Engineers & Designers Don’t Do This

I have never had this type of conversation with engineers or designers who operate in the physical world; those names have been just as coopted by the digital world, possibly to an even greater extent.

I’m not sure what the reason is, but I’m tired of it.

Architects: Next time you’re sitting next to a techie, how about swallowing your pride and having an actual conversation?

We get annoyed because it is pretentious and lazy. A 6 year degree and 2 years of practice before registration is the price of earning the description. It is like someone who repairs photocopiers calling themselves a Reprographics Surgeon, then casually dropping the Reprographics part to call themselves a Surgeon…one EMP in the right place and you will be redundant while real Architects will continue to design Shelter as the primary requirement of human survival.

You, sir, are magnificent. You went from accusing an entire group of people of pretension, to rattling off your academic and intellectual superiority within two sentences. To top that off, you had no regard for your own grammar. Normally I don’t point out the grammatical screwups of commenters, but you had to make this about being better and smarter than my colleagues and me.

Keep praying for the technological apocalypse, which will also result in the death of countless humans. I’m sure it would be worth it so that you could feel better about your degree and license.

One last thing… According to the dictionary, your profession isn’t the sole definition of the word “architect.”